Nixie: Icebreak
It took four weeks to get from the Sanctuary to the Frozen Wastes. The air was frigid this far north. It bothered Kelpie; she wrapped herself in furs to ward off the chill. Nixie, however, did not even have to bother wearing a cloak. She wore only her breezy white dress. She stepped barefoot off the gangplank into the snow. The sailors on the dock shifted uncomfortably, looking at her. There was only one small village here, with perhaps a few hundred resident, subsisting mostly on ice-fishing and hunting. Many had the slanting features, fair hair, and white skin of high elves. Nixbixitus checked herself over carefully. She stopped on the dock to pull on her white leather boots and do up the laces. Her hair had grown long and thick; the dark red dye had come out in patches. She had fixed it on the ship, mixing chemicals to make it white again. She had taken care in her appearance today. Soft black khol to line her eyes. A thick, soft gray dress Mishka had given her with black hose to go underneath. She wore gold rings on her tail-tip and her horns, but left the silver bell behind, where it would be safe. Her mother had always hated the jewelry and the khol, and hated the dresses and the high heels, and Nixie thought: Fuck you as she walked down the dock to her mother's home. . . . Sometimes Nixbixitus thought of her life like a fairytale. Not the nice kind parents told their children before bed, but the old kind, where fairies kidnapped children and ate them. It felt more—abstract, that way. Like one of Mishka’s grossly exaggerated stories. Yeah. Like a Mishka Story. . . . Once upon a time, a witch had three daughters. Kelpinus was strong, and Selkizinus was sharp. But her third daughter, Nixbixitus, was born four weeks early. She was small, and pink, and cold to the touch, and did not open her eyes. At first her mother tossed her into the snow, thinking the child was born dead—but when the witch went outside in the morning, she found the baby still alive, curled in a pile of snow. And so she took the child inside and named her Nixbixitus. The girl was completely mute until she was four. She was basically an ornament; completely useless, probably deaf of or stupid, but… pretty to look at. So the witch kept her daughter locked in her room, out of the way, so she wouldn't be underfoot on the ship. It was fucking awful in her room. Boring, and alone. She didn’t know how to talk to people. But... the witch meant well. Really, she did. She didn’t realize she was hurting her daughter; she only wanted to protect Nixie. She must have. All mothers loved their children, Nixie thought. Yeah. God. The witch—meant well. She fucking… must have. At some point. Right? . . . Nixie walked with Kelpie down the road, through the snow. Tricksy Smirnova lived in a fortress where the icy cliffs met the frozen sea. The surface of the sea constantly froze, but the waves were too strong to let it settle. Instead, the current threw the ice against the rocks-- the ice froze, and broke, and built together. Jagged spikes stuck out of the water like teeth. Nixie made her way through the fortress. Tricksy Smirnova, the Banshee Queen, was ready to receive her. She sat, legs folded, on a thick pile of furs and broken bones in her hold. She looked up. Nixie had rehearsed this moment in her head a thousand times. But it didn't fucking matter, now. Her words froze in her throat. . . . Mishka loved to tell the story of how he'd met her mother. It was his favorite Mishka Story. "Once," Mishka always said, "There was a witch known as the Trickster. A woman sharp as a knife. But she didn't want to just be a witch anymore... she wanted to become immortal. She wanted to become a goddess, I s'pose you could say. Wanted to do typical goddess shit: control the very ocean itself, shatter her opponent's ships with ice, suck them down into the sea. The usual stuff. Kill her enemies, then raise their bodies to crawl out of the sea and drag down their own crewmates. "Now, when I met this woman, she was weak," Mishka said. "Sickly. She suffered from terrible disease. It was slowly killing her. She only had another year or so left. So I took pity on her... and I helped her. I killed her, see." And then he'd laugh. He always laughed at that point in the story, that delicate tinkling noise of his. He'd wave his hand, and he'd say, "Ah, that's a joke. I didn't literally kill her, I just helped her become dead. Y'know. Made her a lich." And then he'd down his drink. "It's not as exciting as I'm making it sound. Honestly, she was already mostly there. Just helped her gather a few last pieces." The story was always different after that. Sometimes he'd describe plunging a magical dagger into her chest, then describe how the dagger sucked her soul into the blade. Sometimes he described reaching into her chest and ripping her heart out, then helping her bind her spirit to it in her last moments of life; then he put her still-beating heart into a box and buried it on a forgotten island. That was always the theme: he ripped out her soul and made her dead. He put her soul in a gem-encrusted crown, he said. He put her soul in a wooden locket and burned it. He put her soul in a pebble and threw it into the sea. Nixbixitus wasn't even sure which parts of the story were true. She didn’t think Mishka helped Tricksy do the soul-binding thing at all. She just knew that her mother was dead. Fucking dead. And Mishka told the story like it was a fucking joke-- Did I ever tell you about the time I killed a Trickster god? he told people. Let me tell you a story, he told people. . . . Her mother had not changed one inch since the time Nixie had seen her. It was as if she was frozen in time. Her eyes were dead and and cold, glowing with an eerie light. Her hair was a thick mass of black curls. Her skin was gray and white. She wore thick captain's clothing, though she had no need for warmth. Tricksy Smirnova liked to know how things worked. She was hideously intelligent and constantly curious. Nixie found her, sometimes, taking apart dead things to see how they worked inside. She called it dissection. That's what Nixie felt like. Like her mother was dissecting her. Taking her apart like a dead thing. Then her mother looked back down at the book in her lap and began writing it. Nixie hadn’t seen her mother in almost two years. But the first thing Tricksy said was, “So tell me everything about this plague. A monster caused it?” And Nixie told her everything. . . . Nixie missed her team. She had left her book behind by accident. But she’d started a new one on the four-week journey to the Frozen Wastes, and she’d started filling it with everything she remembered from the last one. She made a list of everything she knew about the Graverunners. She fought not to miss them, because she hated missing them. She tried to list… just the bad things, so that losing them didn’t bother her so much. She made a list. Facts Nixbixitus Smirnova knew about the Graverunners: Goro was a liar and a thief, and told her not to trust him. Roddy was selfish. Hansel killed people. Hansel defended his awful fucking son, let Jonn hurt people. Raef ditched them like it was nothing. Without even saying good-bye to her. Larkin Basha watched her like she… fucking… prey, or something. Mishka fucking murdered her mother. Mishka fucking murdered her mother, and she trusted him anyway, because she was a fool. She was—so desperate for things he gave. The kindness. The clothes. The shelter. The protection. The pet names. Things nobody every fucking gave her when she a kid. It felt so good when he called her sweetness and darling and Nixie, dear. She kept telling herself these things, kept tracing them over and over again. Kept reminding herself of the bad things. But it didn’t matter, because she couldn’t—she couldn’t stop remembering the good things, too. The way Goro bolted to save her from the burning ship. The way Mishka patiently explained every question she asked him—never mocking her. The way he watched her like he was so fucking proud of the beast she was becoming. The way Roddy braided her hair and helped her paint her nails while she was drunk. He looked so pleased and happy when she painted his shell. The way Hansel held her and told her she did good, teleporting them out of Mishka’s estate. The way Hansel hugged her. She kept repeating those words to herself: You did good. The way he sobbed on her shoulder, and she helped him up. The way Raef laughed when they fought. The way he chatted with her—nothing serious, just… happy talk. The way Larkin Basha smelled like leather and gunpowder. And when she smiled, it was sharp, like a steel knife sharpened against whetstone. . . . When Nixie was done explaining every detail of what had happened with the plague, her mother put down her pen. She didn’t look up, however. Her mother's voice was flat and monotone. "And how is Mikhail?" Nixie's hands curled. He's sick. There's something wrong with him, but he doesn't want anyone to know. His magic is weaker than normal—I can tell. He’s losing control over it. Burning things by accident. Teleporting places when he’s startled. He’s having panic attacks. He’s hiding it, though. Mishka wouldn’t want Tricksy to know. “He’s—he’s okay,” Nixie said. Her voice cracked. Tricksy’s eyes flickered up, but her head didn’t move. She stared, dead-eyed, until finally Nixie grimaced, looking away. Her mother’s body glowed with violet energy for a moment. “I suggest you tell me how Mikhail Haeth is,” Tricksy said. Nixie felt the spell grip her, and she gritted her teeth, fighting to throw it off, but it was no good. She heard herself speaking. Halting her words, choking them off then giving in. “He’s sick. Erratic. L-lost control of his… m-magic.” She felt like a fucking traitor, saying it. But maybe it was over now, and maybe her mother would drop it, and let her leave. “Good,” Tricksy said. She sounded almost… mildly interested. Nixie’s stomach clenched. She wasn’t sure if Tricksy was saying Good, he’s sick.'' Or ''Good, that spell still works on you. Mishka and Tricksy used to be friends. How, though? He was so affable and charming. Maybe her mom was... different before Mishka murdered her. “Now tell me about the Graveunners,” Tricksy said. Nixie shuddered. She looked away. She dug her journal out of her bag, flipped to the page where she’d already listed everything she knew. And she handed it over. . . . When Tricksy was done reading, she closed the book with a snap and tossed it back to Nixie. Nixie fumbled, but caught it, snatching it before it hit the ground. Tricksy went back to making notes. The only sound in the room was the scratch of her pen. Finally, she stopped and put aside her pen. “Do you think you’re ready to come home?” she said without looking up. Nixie hated her. She fucking hated her. She could say yes, or she could say no. Both choices just made her—sad, or angry, she wasn’t sure which. Maybe both. She clenched her hands. She wanted to say: You think I'm weak because I'm pretty and I like nice clothing and painting my nails. Fuck you. She wanted to say: I choose to trust people I want to trust. I'm nice, and I want to help people, and I'm willing to let people hurt me. And you think that makes me stupid. Fuck you. Except maybe those things weren't true. Maybe her mother didn't hate her; maybe her mother just plain didn't care one way or the other. That was almost worse, somehow. “I don’t want to come home,” she said. Without a word, Tricksy got up, walked over, and took her by the shoulder, and teleported her back home. Category:Vignettes